«Love begins where Darkness and Light end.»
Tiger Cub was so indignant she couldn't even answer that. She shook her head sadly and said reluctantly:
«You can at least promise…«
«That depends on what.»
«To be sensible. To trust your senior colleagues.»
«I promise halfway.»
Tiger Cub sighed and then said reluctantly:
«Listen, Anton, you probably think I don't understand you at all. But it's not true. I didn't want to be a shape-shifting magician. I had healing powers, and pretty serious ones.»
«Really?» I looked at her in amazement. I'd never have thought it.
«Yes, I did,» the young woman confirmed casually. «But when I had to choose which side of my powers to develop, the boss called me in. We sat and talked over tea and cakes. We talked very seriously, like grown people, although I was only a little girl, younger than Yulia is now. About what the Light needed and who the Watch needed, what I could achieve. And we decided that I should develop my combat powers, even at the expense of everything else. I didn't much like the idea at first. Do you know how painful it is when you change?»
«Into a tiger?»
«No, changing into a tiger's okay; the hard part's changing back. But I stuck with it. Because I believed the boss, because I realized it was the right thing to do.»
«And now?»
«Now I'm happy,» the young woman declared passionately. «When I see what I would have lost, what I would have been doing with my time. Herbs and spells, fiddling with distorted psychic fields, neutralizing black vortices, mixing up charms…«
«Blood, pain, fear, death,» I said in the same tone. «Doing battle on two or three levels of reality simultaneously. Dodging the fire, tasting the blood, going through hell and high water.»
«That's war.»
«Yes, probably. But why do you have to be the one in the front line?»
«Someone has to be, don't they? And then, after all, I wouldn't have had a house like this.» Tiger Cub waved her hand around the living room. «You know yourself you can't earn much from healing. If you heal with all your power, it just means someone else keeps killing people.»
«This is a nice place,» I agreed. «But how often are you here?»
«Whenever I can be.»
«I guess that's not very often. You take shift after shift; you're always where the action's hottest.»
«That's my path.»
I nodded. What business was it of mine? I said:
«You're right. I suppose I must be tired. That's why I'm talking such nonsense.»
Tiger Cub looked at me suspiciously, surprised I'd given in so quickly.
«I need to sit here with my glass for a while,» I added. «Get totally drunk all on my own, fall asleep under the table, and wake up with a splitting headache. Then I'll feel better.»
«Go on, then,» the sorceress said, with a slightly nervous note in her voice. «What did we come here for? The bar's open; you can choose whatever you like. We can go and join the others. Or I could stay and keep you company.»
«No, I'd be better off on my own,» I said, slapping my hand against the pot-bellied bottle. «In absolute misery with no food to go with the drink and no company. Look in before you go for a swim. Just in case I'm still capable of moving.»
«Okay.»
She smiled and went out. I was left all alone—unless the bottle of Armenian cognac counted as company. Sometimes it helps to believe it does.
She was a fine girl. They were all fine and wonderful, my friends and colleagues at the Watch. I could hear their voices through the music of Queen, and I liked that. I got along really well with some of them and not so well with others. But I had no enemies here and I never would have. We were a close team, we always would be, and there was only one way we could ever lose each other.
So why was I so unhappy about what was going on? I was the only one—Olga and Tiger Cub approved of the boss's plan, and if I asked the others, they'd all feel the same way.
Maybe I really wasn't being objective?
Probably.
I took a sip of cognac and then peeped through the Twilight, trying to locate the pale lights of alien, unintelligent life in the living room.
I discovered three mosquitoes, two flies, and one spider, right up in a corner under the ceiling.
I shuffled my fingers and made a tiny fireball, two millimeters across. I took aim at the spider—a fixed target is best for practicing on—and sent the fireball on its way.
There was nothing immoral about my behavior. We're not Buddhists, at least most of the Others in Russia aren't. We eat meat, we kill flies and mosquitoes, we poison cockroaches: If you're too lazy to learn new frightening spells every month, the insects quickly develop immunity to your magic.
Nothing immoral. It was just funny; it was the proverbial «using a fireball to kill a mosquito.» A favorite game with children of all ages when they're studying in the Watch's courses. I think the Dark Ones probably do the same, except that they don't distinguish between a fly and a sparrow, a mosquito and a dog.
I fried the spider with my first shot. And the drowsy mosquitoes weren't any problem, either.
I celebrated each victory with a glass of cognac, clinking my glass against the obliging bottle. Then I started trying to kill the flies, but either I already had too much alcohol in my blood or the flies were much better at sensing the little ball of fire approaching. I wasted four shots on the first one, but even though I missed, at least I managed to disperse the first three in time. I got the second fly with my sixth shot, and in the process I managed to zap two balls of lightning into the glass of the cabinet standing against the wall.
«Sorry about that,» I said repentantly, downing my cognac. I got up and the room suddenly swayed. I went over to the cabinet, which contained swords hanging on a background of black velvet. At first glance I thought they looked German, fifteenth or sixteenth century. The lighting was switched off, and I didn't try to determine their age more precisely. There were little craters in the glass, but at least I hadn't hit the swords.
I thought for a while about how to put things right and couldn't come up with anything better than putting the glass that had been scattered around the living room back where it had come from. It cost me more effort than if I'd dematerialized all the glass and then recreated it.
After that I went into the bar. I didn't feel like any more cognac, but a bottle of Mexican coffee liqueur looked like a good compromise between the desire to get drunk and the desire to perk myself up. Coffee and alcohol, all in the same bottle.
When I turned back around I saw Semyon sitting in my chair.
«They've all gone to the lake,» the magician told me.
«I'll be right there,» I promised, walking toward him. «Right there.»
«Put the bottle down,» Semyon advised me.
«What for?» I asked. But I put it down.
Semyon looked hard into my eyes. My barriers didn't go up, and when I realized it was a trick it was too late. I tried to look away, but I couldn't.
«You bastard,» I gasped, doubling over.
«Down the corridor on the right!» Semyon shouted after me. His eyes were still boring into my back; the invisible connecting thread was still trailing after me.
I reached the toilet. Five minutes later my tormentor caught up with me.
«Feeling better?»
«Yes,» I said, breathing heavily. I got up off my knees and stuck my head into the sink. Semyon opened the faucet without saying anything and slapped me on the back.
«Relax. We started with basic folk remedies, but now…«
A wave of heat ran through my body. I groaned, but I didn't complain anymore. The dull stupefaction was long gone already, and now the final toxins came flying out of me.